


throw me out

by youcouldmakealife



Series: throw up your fists, throw out your wits [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:18:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Personal doesn’t do anyone any favours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	throw me out

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello, sports fans, here we are again. 
> 
> My tumblr is, as always, [here](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/), and for those who have been nudging me for more of Mike and Liam, a Liam POV response to this particular fic is going up there in the next couple of days. 
> 
> Warnings at the end, and this is a little rougher than my other works in this universe, so if you're unsure, you should check them out.

It’s always a good start to the season when the Flames and the Oilers get to shake hands and throw fists. Even in the preseason, when the points are meaningless and fights are more trouble than they’re worth, it gets the room pumped.

For Luke it’s something a little different, a way to keep an eye on his baby brother, a whole family affair. Their parents come down for at least two games a season now that Ben’s hit NHL level, splitting their time between Calgary and Edmonton, like there’s going to be hurt feelings if the Morris family admits that they raised their kids Oilers fans, and Luke fucked it up by getting drafted to the Flames. He’s got Ben to make up for him, though. Ben’s good at that.

Their parents aren’t down tonight, even parental pride not enough to get them in the car for the seven hour trip, not for a preseason game. Luke texts Ben with where to meet him after the game, tells him to stay out of his way, and then drops the familial attitude, because this is hockey, and there’s no room for it.

Ben looks like he’s half resisting waving at Luke when he’s out on the ice, like he used to do when he was a little kid in the stands, madly waving until Luke, a mortified teenager, finally acknowledged that he existed. He got chirped all the time for it, his baby brother who wanted so badly to be like him.

He’s going to be better. And he’s lucky he’s not generally on the ice at the same time, because if he thinks Luke won’t lay him out, he’s got a surprise coming.

The game starts sedate, no one wants to tire themselves out before the season starts, not for games that don’t mean a thing, even if they’re against your rival. The Flames get a goal towards the end of the first, but the Oilers are playing pretty well. Holding onto that lead is going to be a bitch, especially since it’s been even-strength all game. 

It isn’t Luke ending that streak of clean play, or any of the bruisers, surprisingly. It’s little Liam Fitzgerald with a fucking slew-foot. Luke’s almost proud of him. Who would’ve guessed. 

Fitzy gets escorted to the box, hopping mad. Looking like he’s going to take a swing at the next guy who touches him, Flame or Oiler, it wouldn’t fucking matter. Between Ben’s constant complaints while rooming with him last season, and the kid’s presence for a week up in Grande Prairie during the offseason, Luke’s grown fond of him. 

Doesn’t mean he won’t use the ammo he’s got, stuff Ben hands over like the rookie innocent he is. Baby of the family. If Luke was ever that fucking innocent, he doesn’t even want to know. 

He catches Brouwer on a shift change. “Little spitfire, isn’t he?” he asks, and when Brouwer squints at him, “Man, stayed with us for a week this summer, you wouldn’t believe the shit we got up to.”

_Touched a nerve_ , Luke thinks, when he has to gesture Oglivy over to the box so he can hand off a tooth, Brouwer glowering in the other box, shoulder to shoulder with said little spitfire. Guy may be old, but Luke should really stop going toe to toe with him, it fucking sucks.

He catches Ben after the game, gives him a one armed hug while Ben gives him a disappointed look so reminiscent of their mom it makes Luke inexplicably guilty. 

“Brouwer’s pissed,” Ben says. “Which means Fitzy’s upset.”

Which means Fitzy’s sulking at Ben. Which means Luke gets Ben sulking at him. Fun. 

“Buy you a drink?” Luke asks, and Ben sighs but drops the disappointed eyes. “Maybe Fitzy wants to come along, have me cheer him up--”

Ben starts hitting him. He may not be a fighter, and he may be Luke’s little brother, but he’s still a hockey player and it still fucking _hurts_. “Okay, okay, just bro bonding, stop _hitting_ me. I'm injured!”

"That was your own fault," Ben says, almost prim. Luke can't really argue that fact.

Luke does buy him drinks, just beer, because the little shit doesn’t do anything that won’t make their mom proud, will probably be back long before curfew even though management tends to give you some slack if it’s family. 

On beer two, Ben says, “I wish you hadn’t chirped Brouwer,” all world-weary, like Luke’s the nineteen year old brat in this equation. They’ve got seven years and two sisters between them, Ben’s the baby, but you wouldn’t know that, listening to him. “Fitzy’s probably going to be sitting in front of my door when I get back.”

“You could send him to my place,” Luke says, and Ben kicks him under the table, a little brother again, all the way.

“You know I don’t give a shit,” Luke says. 

Ben does; they don’t talk about it, but Ben’s a smart kid, has always been kind of sensitive. He shared a hotel room with Fitzy for a year and then glared poison at Luke when Luke spent the entire time Fitzy stayed up in Grande Prairie flirting with the kid. It never went anywhere, which was a damn shame. Luke wasn’t saying anything to Brouwer that wasn’t true--Fitzy is a little spitfire. Shame Brouwer seems to have him tamed. 

“Brouwer does,” Ben says. 

“Not my fault he’s a self-hating faggot,” Luke says, and when Ben glares at him, “Fine. For the kid. And for you. Not for that fucker.”

“Thank you,” Ben says, and ducks when Luke reaches over to ruffle his hair.

Ben goes back to his hotel after the second drink, sends Luke a text twenty minutes later cussing him out because Fitzy probably has ended up on his doorstep like a tragic orphan. Luke has a shot of whisky, more to flush the copper taste out of his mouth than anything, numb the throb. Puts a reminder on his phone to call the dentist before he heads out on their next roadtrip. Wants to cuss himself out, because that fight got personal, and he tries not to do that. 

Luke doesn’t usually take any fight personally. They’re all professionals, they’re all doing their jobs the best they can. Brouwer pisses him off though, has ten years on him and still usually comes out on top, fucker, and is an Oiler to boot, fuck ‘em all, Ben excepted.

Personal doesn’t do anyone any favours though. Luke’s got dental surgery in his future, Ben’s got a lover’s spat he’s in the middle of and it’s still the fucking preseason. 

When the season does start, Luke’s got a row of gleaming whites again and they’re on route to Winnipeg, where that’ll probably go to shit right away, because if anywhere’s personal, it’s Winnipeg. Or not Winnipeg, he doesn’t give a shit about the Jets one way or another beyond the fact that they have a tendency to beat the Flames, but Winnipeg has Sidorchuk, and Luke’s grinding his teeth just thinking about it.

Neither of them are on the ice for the first face-off, which is probably the only reason it takes five minutes before gloves are dropped. 

“Russkie,” Luke says, the first time they’re both on the ice, the familiar face, that fucking face staring at him. God, he almost missed this. “Come here.”

“I am not a fucking Russian,” Sidorchuk spits. “I am from Belarus.”

“Same difference,” Luke says. 

He doesn’t even have to try, he thinks if he wished Sidorchuk luck he’d get punched. But that suits him just fine when he’s shaking his gloves off, getting Sidorchuk’s jersey fisted in his shirt. The fans are up on their feet already, because this is the perfect sign that the season’s started--a game between Winnipeg and Calgary isn’t a game if him and Sidorchuk don’t get their hands all over each other, it’s practically law. There are entire articles devoted to their fights.

This one isn’t much of anything, a few blows before the refs spot an opening and get them separated before either can even draw blood, to the obvious displeasure of the crowd, and to Luke’s own displeasure. He’s still got the blood pumping in him, gritted teeth, wants to get his hands into Sidorchuk, make him bleed.

This is exactly why you shouldn’t make things personal. Luke makes it through the rest of the game, but he takes two stupid penalties, gets bawled out by everyone after the game, coach, captain, fucking equipment managers, because one of those penalties led to a goal, and that goal was the game winner. One that Sidorchuk assisted on, so no one needs to be bitching Luke out right now, he’s doing just fine himself. Not that anyone gives a shit.

Luke listens to yet another speech about discipline, one he can practically recite by now. He gets it every time they go to Winnipeg, every time the Jets come to them, and it’s all bullshit, because if they meant it they’d scratch him, but management knows what a lure this is, how Flames fans love it just as much as Jets fans do, that they make it a rivalry worth having instead of some geographical quirk, only the barrens of Saskatchewan between them. 

Once he’s gotten through that, and the disappointed, bloodthirsty press, he takes a shower, fast, heads through the maze of the MTS Centre, takes an employee exit. He never ends up on the bus after Jets games, and no one cares by now, were concerned until he brushed it off as good fights needing a good stiff drink and a good hard fuck, and they cut him some slack because he doesn’t do it anywhere but Winnipeg. Not that this was a good fight, but it’s practically tradition.

Sidorchuk’s leaning by the side door. 

“Hey,” Sidorchuk greets. “American.”

“Fuck off,” Luke snaps.

“Same difference,” Sidorchuk says, sneering, then walks away, and Luke follows him.

Yeah, Luke might not have mentioned this part.

*

They don’t go back to Sidorchuk’s place, because they never have, not that first time, Luke’s mouth throbbing, heart pounding, ready to get his fists into him again with no padding to dull the blows, Ben’s age, fuck, he was Ben’s age, nineteen and nowhere near the innocent Ben is. They got into it right in the parking lot, the whole thing ridiculous, the two of them lucky they didn’t get management called on them, or the cops, and when they fucked, Luke’s back against Sidorchuk’s car, their pants down far enough to get their cocks out, just barely, well, that was just as much a fight as a fist to the gut had been. At the end of it, Luke was even more bruised than he had been but no one noticed, because Sidorchuk had already fucked him up.

The closest thing to a kiss was when Sidorchuk bit the cut on his bottom lip open all over again. 

So they’ve never gone to Sidorchuk’s place, never considered it, but now they can’t, Sidorchuk’s got a girlfriend, pretty and blonde, a piece, who shows up for media events and smiles with white teeth and either doesn’t know or doesn’t care what Sidorchuk does when Luke’s in town. Or any other time, fuck, for all Luke knows he takes every enforcer back and fucks them. He’s not his keeper. 

But they’re not stupid enough to get their pants down in parking garages either, go to a shitty little motel not too far from the arena, stewing, silent, in Sidorchuk’s car, or start scratching at old hurts so that by the time they’re there they’ve already moved back into fighting. It’s not every time--the night Luke fractured his cheekbone Sidorchuk never showed, and the night Sidorchuk’s comments were less of a taunt and more razor sharp, straight to bone, Luke piled onto the bus with everyone else--but it’s close enough.

When Sidorchuk’s in Calgary, Luke just takes him back to his place. It’s easier that way, and Sidorchuk’s out the door the second he’s caught his breath, so it doesn’t matter. See, the thing is, Luke doesn’t think he’s ever hated anyone as much as he’s hated Nikita Sidorchuk, but he trusts him with this, because telling is a no win situation, and ever since Sidorchuk mentioned it on the ice and Luke stood him up, they don’t mention it between themselves either.

Tonight they hadn’t done enough damage on the ice to fuck the way they want to, vicious, enough to leave marks, so it’s handjobs, fast, rough, on the edge of where pleasure dips into pain. Luke can’t put his teeth in him, can’t even let his fingers leave marks, because it’s the beginning of the season and they’re both about as unspoiled as they can be. Questions in the locker room are something neither of them need, and Luke knows if he left marks out of spite than Sidorchuk would do it right back, and probably worse.

It’s not enough, it’s not what either of them wanted, but it’s what they can get away with, so Luke sits on the bed, unspoiled, calls himself a cab while he watches Sidorchuk clean himself up through the open bathroom door, check to make sure that there isn’t any sign, no marks, that he won’t go home with dried semen sticking to his skin. Don’t want to upset the girlfriend.

Sidorchuk’s finished before Luke gets the call to come outside. He lingers in the doorway a minute, he always fucking does this, like he’s waiting for something. Luke doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He does know he’s never going to get it.

“Next time I’m going to make you bleed,” Luke says.

Sidorchuk smiles faintly. “I am looking forward to it.”

*

At one point, years ago, Luke was sixteen and Sidorchuk was eighteen, was Niki, was a little shy and terrible at English, was bigger than Luke (the last time he would be) and stronger than Luke (debatable now). At one point they played on the same team--god, the media loves that--and shared a room on the road--the media _dies_ over that.

At one point they fucked without bruises or excuses, fumbling teenagers, sneaking around their billets, hushing each other in hotel rooms, awkward in their skin. At one point they fucked without fucking each other up first. 

Luke is never going to forgive him for when that stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> These warnings are for the general series: pervasive on-ice violence, occasional off-ice violence, eroticized violence, explicit underage (16/18), incredibly unhealthy relationship, infidelity, unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other.
> 
> I'm probably not going to be warning for each part, because I am generally terrible at knowing when my work crosses into requiring warnings, but you will find all of the above in various parts.


End file.
